‘Twas a grey day in February,
and evening fell like a dead canary…
Thus begins this year’s winning entry in the annual Upper Dongle Creek Literary Society Bad Poetry Contest. Penned by Mr. E. P. Merdle of Fickle Fork, Iowa, “February” evinces a deft hand at poetic form animated by vivid imagination and the worst possible taste. When asked for comment on his victory, Mr. Merdle replied only that “the main ain’t got no culture.”
First prize for 2022 is a box of five hundred pink erasers, a certificate suitable for framing, and a cease and desist order signed by six former U.S. Poets Laureate.
February
A Cautionary Tale, and Desultory Philippic
by E. P. Merdle
’Twas a grey day in February
And evening fell like a dead canary.
O’er garden drear a pale veneer
Of mist lay on the statuary:
Mantled cement Pekingese
And noble Buddha’s belly,
Shrouded barren apple trees
That e’er gave bitter jelly,
Twice-buried summer’s golden koi
Entombed in frozen pond,
And cloaked the naughty pissing-boy
In ghostly fig-leaf frond.
The archangel atop the tomb
Of some forgotten scion
Now shadow’d too by foggy doom
And urging me to fly on.
Oh, dim and clammy February!
I vowed in garden not to tarry
But hasten toward my cottage door
And the bosom of sweet Mary.
Ah, Mary! Sweet and tender lass!
We met beneath the overpass.
On edge of town she flagged me down:
Her car had just run out o’ gas.
How clear that first day comes to mind—
Wishing all would see us,
Sweet Mary buckled by my side
Together in my Prius.
Her flowing curls of fine-spun gold
She tossed like stormy sea;
Her skin was fair as fine brie-mold,
Her eyes like celery.
Her hands were soft as rendered lard,
Her lips ripe to be kissed,
As red as the blush that gently marred
Her cheeks when she got pissed.
No dim and clammy February
Could e’er dissuade our love to tarry
But all was summer—’til fate tore me from her
My dearest darling love, my Mary.
Now she sat close by the fire
Waiting for her heart’s desire
With patient hands knit woolen strands
‘Til I should come to sit by her.
I spied her figure through the window
Silhouette by lamplight,
Halo’d soft as by a moonglow,
My beacon in the damp night.
No more waiting, sweet my bride!
I made my footsteps quick
The sooner to be by her side
Though the fog had grown quite thick.
Alas! Poor judgment my decision
To haste through mud and gloom,
For night had clouded o’er my vision—
And thus I met my doom.
Oh, dim and clammy February
That stole me from my sweet Mary!
I stubbed my toe, and was laid low
By a piece of broken statuary.
Long time then I lay insensible
To ought but pain incomprehensible
That dulled my brain, as life-force drained
And left my limbs inextensible.
‘Twas my foot struck broken pottery
Lying hidden in wet grass;
My legs flew out from under me,
I tumbled to my ass,
And hit my head—what was at fault?
Not Buddha’s noble belly!
Yea! Round as earth and hard as asphalt,
It turned my brain to jelly.
I gazed on yonder window-pane
Where sat my lovely mate,
But to her ears I cried in vain,
For she knew not my fate.
Oh, damnedest garden statuary
That stole sweet love and life from me!
Without light’s guide, I fell—and died—
That dim and clammy February.
What bitter tears my true love wept
When—alas, too late!—she crept
From cozy hearth to scour the earth
And found the spot where now I slept.
“Oh, love,” she cried, “who blest mine eye
“And made my heartbeat quicken!
“That thus should rage that noble sage—
“If only I’d been Wiccan!”
They buried me in garden grass
Beneath the apple tree
That my love in daily stroll might pass
My bones, and weep for me.
Now Mary sits each night alone
By an empty fireside
With a heart that’s great in sorrow grown
And a love that’s never died.
Oh, dim and fateful February
That made a widow of my Mary!
Her love doth rot in a clammy plot,
And her garden’s but an ossuary.
So ends my dirge of February,
Though my spirit lingers endlessly
Where still abides my darling bride
‘Til death might loose her soul to me.
Though loss be our eternal portion,
Yet good may come of our misfortune
If my poor part be took to heart—
Now gravely I importune:
Consider well my humble rhyme,
That thou sharest not this fate of mine
But leave to me my tragedy
Of marshy sage, toes, Mary, and time.